


I Can't Get It To Work

by tesselester



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Crushes, Crying, Drinking, Existential Crisis, First Meetings, Light Angst, M/M, Neighbours, Strangers, dan is crying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-17
Updated: 2016-12-17
Packaged: 2018-09-09 03:28:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8874028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tesselester/pseuds/tesselester
Summary: inspired by this au: we have neighboring apartments and i found you sitting in the hall crying because you’re hella exhausted and you’re so tired you can’t get your key to work in the lock please stop crying i’m trying to help you





	

 

It was a long day at work and Phil was exhausted. He had one too many glasses of whatever he’d drunk the night before and suffered for it in the morning and his customers and his co-workers and his boss had noticed.

Taking the long trek back to his apartment after stopping by the liquor store, he gripped his bag straps as he mentally collected his thoughts. He was relieved at the prospect of collapsing on his bed and sleeping for twelve hours. 

As he reached his building, he was stopped at the top of the stairs of his hallway with the sight of the cute brown haired boy that lives across the hall from him, sitting at his door with his head in his hands.

This wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for his neighbour, so Phil didn’t think much of it. He decided when he met him, that he was an odd one. Always shouting alone in his flat in the middle of the night at the TV, or stumbling home drunk and laughing when he couldn’t get his key in the lock. 

One time he knocked on Phil’s door at three in the morning and when he answered, the boy apologized because he thought it was his apartment. 

“If this was your apartment, why would you be knocking on your own door?” Phil asked.

He just shrugged and turned to knock on his actual door and a minute later, a blonde woman answered and ushered him in, smiling apologetically to Phil. 

So Phil didn’t think much of it when he saw his cute nameless neighbour sitting out in the hall. He was probably just out of it, drunk on tequila, or was waiting for that blonde woman to let him in again. 

He walked up to his door, saying a quick “good evening,” and got his keys out. Phil didn’t hear a reply from the boy, so he curiously turned around.

He was crying. Well, actually, he was sobbing.

Phil stood there awkwardly, paralyzed with shock. He was so used to the silly demeanour of his neighbour that he didn’t know what to do with this new persona.

“Um…” Phil hesitated, “hello.”

The boy looked up, his eyes were bloodshot.

“Are you alright? What happened?”

He pulled his knees closer to his chest and held up the key to his apartment, “I can’t get it to work,” he sniffled, resting his head on his knees pathetically.

Phil just stared at the keys in the boy’s hand and said, “is that it?" 

His head shot up and glared at him, “what do you mean _‘is that it?’”_ he sobbed harder.

Phil panicked, “sorry! I—I didn’t—I just mean—I…uh,” he groaned inwardly for making the cute boy cry.

He sat beside him and patted him on the back, attempting to sooth him, “please don’t cry. Here,” Phil grabbed the key from his hand and tried the lock. It didn’t work, and the boy cried harder.

“I’m sorry,” Phil apologized, sitting back down, “please stop crying. It’ll be okay.”

The boy wiped his eyes on his sleeve, catching Phil’s eye as he breathed in, “sorry, I just…,” he sighed, “I just got fired from my job."

Phil frowned, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine,” he shrugged, “it wasn’t a particularly exciting job, I wasn’t very good at it and I don’t think my boss or co-workers really liked me being there. All I did was stand around awkwardly and take naps and break things and cause trouble. I was useless and unnecessary there. Not like I really enjoyed it anyways. It just payed the rent of this shithole.”

“That sucks.”

“Plus, I’m knee deep in school work and I don’t even have the patience to fucking study anymore,” he pressed his face in his hands, “I mean, maybe I should just drop out and become a fucking hobo. Who needs money and education? Certainly not me. I don’t even care if I live, what even is the point of life? To make money and spend it all? I feel like that’s not a very fulfilling life, then.”

“You know what I do in my free time?” The boy’s face turned sour, “I play video games and watch anime. Not very fulfilling. I don’t even have the motivation to even step outside to buy groceries or go clothing shopping. I buy everything online and waste away my hours on the couch. Like, who fucking does that? I’m such a loser. I don’t have any friends or even a girlfriend. The last time I got laid was at the start of uni. I don’t even know what the rest of the world looks like past the bank around the corner.”

Phil stared at the boy with wide eyes. He didn’t know how to respond.

Dan saw the expression on Phil’s face and felt guilty, “I’m sorry. I’m just tired. Look, you don’t have to stay out here with me, I appreciate it, but you’re allowed to leave if you like. I’ll understand if you don’t want to stick around a helpless, crying boy.”

“Oh,” Phil said dumbly. He considered leaving, his bed seemed like a cloud he’d like to sink down on. But this boy seemed so alone and fragile. He needed help, and Phil didn’t know how to give him that. But he did remember the bottle of whiskey he’d stopped for on his way home. Alcohol did always seem like a solution for all his problems.

“Well, I’m also pretty tired, and lonely, and…” Phil reached into his bag and pulled out the brown bag holding the bottle, “I was just going to drink this alone and binge watch some netflix, but since you’re out here…and I’m out here…”

Phil looks at him mischievously, and a half hour later, they’re taking shots straight from the bottle. The both of them were already more than halfway to being drunk, slurring their words, with the world spinning around them.

“—I mean, if you wanna go and fuck a doughnut, you can, but would you be able to live with the weird kink for the rest of your life?”

“I think I would, just because I would never tell anyone, except for the person who I’d absolutely be sure wouldn’t judge me for it. Would you?”

“Yeah,” the boy contemplated, “I think I’d fuck a doughnut for the rest of my life rather than abstain from sex forever. ‘Cause that’s just too cruel.”

He took a gulp of the whiskey, pulling a face at the flavour.

“I can’t believe I’m sat out in the hall with a stranger getting drunk on cheap alcohol,” Phil mused.

He looked at Phil, his eyelids heavy, “I’m Dan, nice to meet you. Now we’re not strange.”

“Strang _ers._ Not strange.”

Dan giggled, “ _you’re_ strange.”

“Shut up.”

“What’s _your_ name, then, strange one?”

Phil looked into his brown eyes, leaning in closer than he intended, they didn’t look particularly threatening. He was sweet and kind, loud and obnoxious, emotional and sincere, but he didn’t feel threatening. He liked the cute boy, Dan.

“Phil.”

“Funny,” Dan smiled, “we’ve been neighbours for the past year and we’ve never bothered to learn the other’s name.”

“Yeah,” Phil mumbled, “hilarious."

“Phil,” Dan said.

“Yes, Dan?”

“Thank you for being here.”

Phil smiled, “anytime.”

“We should be friends,” Dan suggested.

“I’d like that,” Phil grinned.

“Phil?”

“Yes?”

“Would you fuck a teddy bear?”

“No, it’d be hard to get off to an innocent face like that. You?”

Dan shook his head, and then paused before saying, “Phil?”

“Yeah, Dan?”

Dan chewed his lip, “can I crash at yours, I think I have the wrong key.”

“Well, that would explain why it wasn’t working,” Phil moved to stand up, almost stumbling over and catching himself on his door, “of course you can, I have a couch waiting for your body.”

“Thanks, stranger.”

Phil was surprised at how comfortable he was with Dan and how easily he had accepted him into his home.

Just as Dan was falling asleep on the couch, he grabbed Phil’s wrist.

“Phil,” he yawned.

“Yeah?”

He closed his eyes and quietly said, “can I confess somethin’?”

“Sure?”

“I hope you don’t mind. I’ve had a crush on you for the past eight months but I was too afraid to properly say hello. You’re probably just a dream. This probably isn’t real. You’re just the handsome man across the hall I’ll have no chance with. But…a boy can dream…”

Phil didn’t know how to react to this confession. He stood there, staring at the sleepy boy when he realized he’d already fallen asleep. His hand still gripping his wrist.

Phil retracted his hand and gazed at the sleeping boy. Dan. The boy across the hall he thought was cute. The boy he thought was out of his league. The boy he thought was straight and had a girlfriend.

He pulled the blanket to cover Dan’s body and as he did, he heard Dan mutter a soft _Phil_ in his sleep. Smiling and hugging his pillow as he fell into a deep sleep.

Phil wasn’t a creep, but he had imagined many a scenario like this before. Usually not one where they were drunk and where Phil had collapsed onto the floor next to the sleeping boy.

**Author's Note:**

> this was just a small drabble to get over my block also to get the ball rolling after the semester. also i'm bad at endings


End file.
